


Gimme Shelter

by kijilinn



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Gen, Lost Love, Missed Chances, Romance, Zombies, love and zombies dude, mixing genres
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-04 02:31:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10981494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kijilinn/pseuds/kijilinn
Summary: “Dad?” Dean couldn’t keep the alarm out of his voice this time and Sam took a few steps closer, reacting to that fear. “What’s going on?”John paused for a moment and Dean could hear a woman’s voice in the background say urgently, “Tell them, John. Say it and get it over with.”“The dead are walking.”





	Gimme Shelter

Chapter One

“Dad’s away on a hunting trip and he hasn’t been home in a couple of weeks.”

Sam stared at his brother. “Jess, could you excuse us for a minute.” As his girlfriend slipped away, Sam stepped closer to Dean and hissed, “He’s gone on solo trips before.”

“But not for this long and not without making contact,” Dean replied. “It’s--” He jumped when his phone rang, looked down at the caller ID and felt his cheeks coloring. “Oh. There he is.”

Sam sighed in frustration, throwing his hands up at Dean as he turned away. “See. Nothing to worry about. Nice to see you, Dean, bye.”

Dean glared at his younger brother as he answered the phone. “Dad, where are you? Are you okay?”

“Where are you?” John Winchester’s voice was tense and sharp. 

“I--”

“Don’t lie to me, Dean, there’s no time. Where are you right now?”

Dean sighed and closed his eyes. “Sam’s.”

“Good.” Dean’s head jerked back in surprise and he almost pulled the phone away from his ear to stare at it. Sam had paused at the look of confusion on his brother’s face and Jess snuggled up under his arm, peeking around the corner. “Get your brother, get whatever survival gear you can find, food, ammo, clean water. Everything you can pack in the car. Get Sam and anybody you absolutely cannot live without. And get out of the city.”

Dean let his eyes drift up to meet Sam’s, horror written all over his face. “Dad, what’s going on? Go where?”

“Get. Out.” John’s voice rang with authority. “Get as far from population centers as you can get. Especially if it has an international airport. Get to Pastor Jim’s if you can. I’ll contact you when I can.” 

Dean chewed his lip. “Yes, sir. What should we be watching for? Special materials? Silver, rowan wood?”

“Gas,” John said and it almost seemed like an afterthought. “Get gas cans, if you can and fill ‘em up. Standard ammo, nothing special. MREs would be ideal. And if anybody’s bit, you shoot them. In the head. Don’t wait.”

“Dad?” Dean couldn’t keep the alarm out of his voice this time and Sam took a few steps closer, reacting to that fear. “What’s going on?”

John paused for a moment and Dean could hear a woman’s voice in the background say urgently, “Tell them, John. Say it and get it over with.”

“The dead are walking.”

Dean looked up at Sam in bafflement. He opened his mouth and closed it again, unable to come up with anything to say. “What did he say?” Sam pressed.

“That’s impossible,” Dean finally managed to sputter into the phone.

“Doesn’t make it untrue,” John sighed. “There isn’t time. I wish to god there was. But you need to supply and get out of there. Now, Dean. Get to one of the safehouses.”

“What about you?”

“I’m at the Roadhouse.” There was an edge of exhaustion in his father’s voice that Dean had seldom heard before. “We’re spreading the word and locking down here. But you have to get to safety before this starts to spread. It’s going to get worse and it’s going to happen fast.”

It started to dawn on Dean that this really was as serious as his father said it was. “Okay. We’re going. Stay safe.”

“You, too.” John paused, then added firmly, “I love you, son.”

“Love you, too, Dad.” Dean folded the phone shut and immediately started to move. He grabbed food from the cupboards and started stacking boxes of crackers, cookies, canned soup on the table. “Can opener,”  he said more to himself than to Sam and Jess and started to rummage in a drawer of odds and ends.

“Second drawer by the stove,” Sam said, his head tilted in puzzlement. “Dean, what are you doing? What’s going on?”

Dean opened the indicated drawer and grabbed the can opener. “Z-day.” He looked Jess up and down with an eye that was utterly practical and not at all sexual. “Get dressed. Canvas or denim, rip-proof stuff. Long sleeves, long pants. Layer if you can. You’ll want it. Pack extras, only bags you can carry, no rollers.”

“Z-day?” Sam asked helplessly. 

Dean turned to him and slammed a half-empty bag of rice against his chest. “Zombies, dude. The dead are walking. Dad told us to get what we can and get out. That’s what we’re doing.” Without waiting for an answer, he rushed past his brother to look for more supplies.

Sam looked after him, then turned to Jess’s incredulous face. “What… I… no.” He turned again and called after Dean, “What?! That’s crazy.”

“Dad’s at Harvelle’s Roadhouse,” Dean said by way of explanation. “He’s with Alley. I heard her.”

Sam tilted his head. “Alley… wait, you heard Alley?”

“Yup. It’s big.” He found a linen closet and started pulling down pillow cases. “Are you going to help me or just stand there?” 

Sam shook his head to clear it, then accepted the pillow cases from Dean and ran back to the kitchen, starting to load up the cans. “Jess, can you help pack?”

“No, Sam.” He looked up into her angry face, her hands on her hips. “This is crazy. What are you doing? What about the interview--”

Sam sighed and walked over to her, put his hands on her shoulders and looked at her seriously. “Jess, I can’t have an interview if the panel is trying to eat my face off. I know it’s a lot to take in right now and I should have told you a long time ago, but just trust me. This is real. It’s huge. And we need to get out of here. Monsters are real and my dad just dropped the motherload of monsters.” He leaned in quickly to kiss her, then turned her around and gave her a little push for the bedroom. “Get dressed and pack.”

 

***

 

John looked down at the phone. His face felt tired. Everything felt tired, but his face especially. A hand ran over his shoulder and he sighed, letting his head drop to the side so his cheek rested against Alley’s fingers. “I’m sorry.”

Instead of answering, the woman stroked his face, turned him to face her, and kissed his forehead tenderly. She smiled at him, then flipped open a handwritten address book and tapped the first entry. When he nodded, she turned away and walked into another room in the rundown tavern. “Status?” she asked the man behind the computer.

“Chicago’s fucked.” Ash looked up from his programs, raccoon-eyed from lack of sleep and his trademark mullet tangled. “National Guard’s already shut down O’Hare.” He pointed to the screen and Alley came around his desk to look over his shoulder. There were news reports coming out of Chicago, New York, Boston, DC, Atlanta. Most of the midwest and east coast cities with international airports were already reporting an almost rabies-like sickness that drove people to attack others aggressively, biting and clawing at them. It was spreading fast. “Nothing in Denver. Nothing in LA,” the hacker added in a low voice. “It’ll give Dean some time to get Sam out of there, at least.” He glanced over his shoulder to Alley’s face and frowned. “You need to get some sleep, Alley.” She smiled and shook her head, patted his shoulder and started to walk out, but Ash grabbed her wrist. “I mean it. A lot’s happened in the last twenty-four hours and I know you. Get some sleep.” He pointed at the bed in the back of the room, then returned to his computer.

“I will,” she whispered and kissed his temple lightly, which made him blush furiously. “Later.” Before he could protest, she slipped back out of the room and into the tap room. John was arguing with one of the hunter contacts over the phone, his eyes closed and the bridge of his nose pinched between forefinger and thumb. Ellen and Jo were directing a few of the larger men in moving the pool table out the back of the building to block one of the rear exits. Several other hunters were doggedly nailing boards over the windows.

Ash had first noticed the strange patterns of CDC reports centered around the port cities. When they had started to analyze the security footage and some of what the CDC was already saying, it didn’t take much to make the connection. It just took a mind open to the impossible and few people were in a better position for that than hunters. Ellen had started calling every hunter she knew, spreading the word as fast as she could. Some of the Roadhouse regulars had picked up the call and gone to personal safe houses or showed up at the Roadhouse, prepared to fortify for an extended siege. 

And Ellen had finally buried her hatchet with John Winchester and called him. He hadn’t been far away and came straight for the Roadhouse. Everyone who was currently holed up in the tavern felt better knowing he was there, even if nobody was willing to actually say it. John was still the best hunter anyone had ever seen. They all knew why John had come to the Roadhouse first, too.

Alley. 

She looked up from monitoring the covering of the windows and saw that John was watching her from across the room. They had been lovers about six years ago, but had eventually parted ways when it became apparent to Alley that he couldn’t let go of his wife’s memory. The chemistry was still there, magnetic, but Alley turned away again and went to check the kitchen stores. A lot had happened since they were lovers.

“Alley.” Ellen touched her shoulder and Alley turned towards her friend. “We’ve got this. You should get some sleep. And Ash, too. Both of you have been going nonstop since this whole thing started.” Alley shook her head and smiled, angling to head into the kitchen anyway. Ellen’s hand closed tighter on her shoulder and turned her back. “I’m serious. Go bonk Ash over the head and both of you get some sleep. Or everyone will start hearing about--”

“Okay,” Alley gasped quickly and held her hands up. “I’ll go.” 

Ellen grinned as her friend darted back into one of the spare bedrooms. Alley had been living at the Roadhouse since she turned up with a barely running car about six years ago, running from her past. While her real name wasn’t a secret to Ellen, Jo, or Ash, they were careful to keep her under wraps. Ellen suspected John knew as well, but wasn’t going to bother herself about it. She leaned on the bar for a moment, watching the familiar inside of her tavern turn itself inside out, rapidly becoming a base of operations for every hunter within a hundred miles. 

“Ellen,” John said and she looked at him, lips pressed together in a line. “Bobby won’t budge.”

“It’s his own ass,” she replied sourly.

John shook his head. “He’s on his own out there. I won’t leave him to rot. I’m going to get him or at least to help him fortify.”

“Take Zig and Ryan with you,” she said and the former looked up from where he was hammering nails into the wall to support the weight of a wooden plank. “What do I tell your boys if they call?”

“That I’m working.”

Ellen shook her head slowly. “Say goodbye to Alley.”

John glared at her. “I will. I’m not a child, Ellen.”

“It’d be news to me.” When he opened his mouth to argue the issue, she lifted her hand and pushed his face away. “Suck it up, Winchester. You left her for a ghost of a memory. At least have the decency to apologize for that much before you go off to die.” John looked like he still wanted to argue, but nodded wearily and walked in the direction of Alley’s room.

When John reached to knock, he realized he could hear Alley talking quietly. Without meaning to, he tilted his head and caught her voice saying, “Call me when you get this? I’m worried about you.” The idea that she’d be worried about someone not currently at the Roadhouse seemed odd to him, but he knocked anyway. He thought he heard her say something else under the knock, but he couldn’t be sure. She opened the door to look at him and John felt bad for bothering her. She looked exhausted. “Bobby Singer won’t get his ornery ass out of Sioux Falls. I’m taking a few guys to retrieve him. You’ll hold the fort here when Dean and Sam show up?” She nodded. “It’s two hours there, two hours back, assuming the roads haven’t started to shut down.”

Alley nodded again and John lifted his head to actually look at her. His heart ached: she was easily as tired as he was and he wanted to hold her. Hold her and sleep beside her. Like before. But before was gone and he could see it in her eyes. He opened his mouth to say something more, but she smiled and shook her head. “Let it go, John,” she said softly. “It was a long time ago.”

“It wasn’t that long,” he replied. When she started to turn away, something in his chest drove him forward and John whispered, “Alley, wait.” She paused and waited, her hand on the door and her eyes tired and wary. “Can I kiss you?” He tried to keep a begging edge out of his voice, but heard it anyway. “For luck?”

Alley slowly shook her head. “John Winchester makes his own luck. A lot can happen in six years.”

She turned to look over her shoulder at the room and John felt his jaw tighten. “What’s his name?”

Alley’s face flushed immediately and she almost jumped to meet his eyes. “Did…?”

“No. Ellen didn’t tell me. She didn’t have to.” He stretched and closed his hands into fists, then stretched them open again, restless. “He’s written all over your face. In your voice. Do you talk to him, like you talked to me?”

“John,” sighed Alley and she retreated a step into the room. John followed her naturally and she didn’t turn him away. “Stop. Don’t torture yourself.”

John took another step toward her and Alley didn’t move away when he brought his hands to her cheeks, framing her face. “Alley, I still love you. I never stopped. Does he know you? All of you? Does he know--”

“His father was a hunter,” Alley interrupted him gently. “He decided it wasn’t the life for him. He teaches art history at the college, uses the school databases to help with research and lore hunts.” When John didn’t move, didn’t speak, she leaned her cheek against his hand. “He loves me, John. And I love him.”

John’s hands twitched and he stroked his thumbs over her skin before he released her and stepped back. “At least tell me his name.”

“Felix.” She smiled when she said his name and John closed his eyes.

“I’m--” 

“Don’t say it unless you mean it,” she said and John winced. 

“I want to be happy for you,” he amended quietly. “I do. But I’m not. I want you to be happy with me.”

“Winchesters aren’t used to having rivals,” she added with a little teasing edge in her voice.

John blinked and felt his lips curl up in answer to the shine in her eyes. “No. I guess not. Dean’s the same way.” He cleared his throat and pushed his hands into the pockets of his jacket. Movement in the tap room drew his attention and John glanced back to see Ryan and Zig waiting with bored, impatient expressions on their faces. “I should probably go,” John murmured. 

“Be safe.” 

“As possible,” he smiled. “You, too. I hope Felix is okay. I can wish that much in good conscience.” John paused, then nodded once to Alley and turned away to join the pair of hunters waiting for him.

 

***

 

“Call me when you get this? I’m worried about you. I love you.” Felix smiled to himself as Alley’s message finished. He leaned back in the uncomfortable waiting room chair, savoring the warm buzz hearing her voice still gave him. Someone behind him started to cough violently and he closed his eyes, trying not to cough in sympathy. 

He hated waiting at the emergency room. You never knew what you were going to catch.


End file.
